Our View: Teachers deserve Common Core curriculum

There seems to be general agreement among public school teachers and education administrators that what's known as the Common Core Standards on which students will be measured are reasonable yardsticks of success.

Students in Louisiana and other states will be assessed on their ability to meet the Common Core Standards at each grade level after it's fully implemented. In Louisiana, that will be during the 2014-15 school year.

The disagreement here among educators isn't so much whether the standards themselves are reasonable, but why the Louisiana Department of Education isn't providing a curriculum establishing guidance on how to reach them.

Though the state's education department and its Superintendent John White in 2012 promised a new state-developed curriculum aligned with the Common Core Standards, he instead has left it up to individual schools districts to come up with their own.

A few districts have the resources and expertise to develop their own curriculum, but most have had to rely on what they could secure - and afford - from elsewhere.

Those districts, under the recommendation of White, have chosen the Engage New York curriculum, not least of which because it's free.

White said he believes the Engage New York curriculum, which was developed by LSU professors, is better than what his department could develop for its districts.

This is another example of the need for more leadership from the state and indicative of why the bureaucracy and the foot soldiers, our public school teachers, have developed such a fractious relationship.

Our Louisiana Department of Education absolutely should provide a road map to reach the Common Core Standards instead of abdicating a responsibility to which it previously committed.

White and his staff have an obligation to our teachers, whose performance reviews and compensation will be based on how their students do on the standards.

But more importantly, they have an obligation to our state's students, who ultimately have to compete against those from other states and the world.

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Our View: Teachers deserve Common Core curriculum

There seems to be general agreement among public school teachers and education administrators that what's known as the Common Core Standards on which students will be measured are reasonable